


centre of the universe

by Shampain



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Boarding School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, DameRey, F/M, Kylux - Freeform, Kylux is the focus, M/M, Underage Drinking, but Poe and Rey are gd cute, hanging out in the closet with your friends, mentions of domestic abuse, the NINETIES
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-09-14 14:23:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9185969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shampain/pseuds/Shampain
Summary: “Military school?” Ben choked. No more boarding at the Academy together. No tackling each other in hockey, studying in the library together, sneaking off to the nearest little town to find beer with Poe and Finn, shared cigarettes on Saturdays. No more careful kisses in empty hallways, holding hands in the same study cubicle. No more having Hux to himself, always, forever.Hux slipped his hands through Ben’s hair, caressing, soothing. “It’s only during the school year,” he whispered. “I’ll be back before you know it. Soon it’ll be summer again.”-Ben doesn't deal well with distance. Boarding School (kinda) AU.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kitseybarbours](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitseybarbours/gifts).



> I asked lil miss Kitsey for a prompt to see if I could smash through some writer's block and welp, I sure did write _something_ in response (sorry bro this probably isn't what you wanted). Warnings are tagged but honestly this is set in the 90's, no one was happy unless you were a Spice Girl.

When the weather’s warm he can still taste that first kiss. It blossoms from his lips and down his throat and into his brain and he feels like he can’t properly think when it’s summer, when the world is too hot and the sky turns hazy and uncertain. Summer is a dream. Summer is an interlude beneath an apple tree laden with sweet fruit, and the smell of Hux’s sweat and the fragrant aftermath of his shampoo. Summer is gone before Ben is ready for it to leave.

He shivers. He exhales frost.

 

-

 

The world is lonely now. Ben imagines it in its turn around the sun, a cold rotating rock with only a single throbbing point: the Academy.

Poe seems to understand. He never gets to see his girl. He writes her letters, every week. He writes her songs and poems (“What’s the difference?” Finn had once asked, with a smirk) and draws her pictures. He copies out poetry and interesting things he reads in the library. She sends him letters back stamped with a glossy lip print, scented with lavender or ginger, with magazine clippings of interviews of Poe’s favourite bands stuffed inside the envelopes. She goes to school in the city, somewhere low rent, run down, cheap, where the desks all have initials carved into the wood and none of the books are new. Larger than life, more real than boarding school. All the boys are jealous of her, and also everyone but Poe is jealous of Poe.

Ben watches Poe with envy of a different kind. How can it be so easy, to pick up a pen and suddenly your heart is on the paper? He tries, oh God he tries, he begins letters with _Dear Hux_ and then gets lost in the margins. He tries to write about how he aches, or his fear. Instead he writes about how difficult classes are. He writes about Poe and Rey, how the teachers seem to have it in for Finn.

Hux writes back. The letters are never very long.

_Ben,_

_It’s not so bad here. I like it more than home, but less than the Academy._

_That’s too bad about Finn. I’ve been through it before; he just has to fly under the radar a bit, I guess._

_I miss you._

_Hux_

 

 _Do you remember our tree?_ Ben wants to write. _Let’s go back there. I want to kiss you again under that tree. I want to taste your skin and sweat. I want to die under that tree with you in my arms because life will never be sweeter_. He puts Hux's letter away, instead.

 

-

 

“It’s a phase, Armitage,” Hux’s father had told his son, coldly, at his most civil. At his least civil, he’d beaten Hux behind closed doors.

He’d also raged at Ben’s parents, screaming that they’d raised a fag, that their son was corrupting his own. Ben thought he was going to die from the shame and the fear but his mother had placed a hand at the back of his neck – a soft, cool, dry hand, the same that checked his temperature when he was ill – and his father had threatened to shoot Hux’s father if he ever came near them again.

The true pain had been sneaking out of the house that night to meet, driving thirty minutes through the sweet summer night, and realizing Hux had been crying. _I did this_ , Ben thought, and the guilt turned his stomach and for a moment he couldn’t breathe. They were at their tree, and Hux’s lips tasted of salt, with the sour tang of blood.

“Military school?” Ben choked. No more boarding at the Academy together. No tackling each other in hockey, studying in the library together, sneaking off to the nearest little town to find beer with Poe and Finn, shared cigarettes on Saturdays. No more careful kisses in empty hallways, holding hands in the same study cubicle. No more having Hux to himself, always, forever.

Hux slipped his hands through Ben’s hair, caressing, soothing. “It’s only during the school year,” he whispered. “I’ll be back before you know it. Soon it’ll be summer again.”

 

-

 

That first time, when most of the other boys had left for the winter holidays but Ben and Hux had another day to go before their cars arrived. That first time in the empty dormitory, when Ben had taken Hux up in his arms and kissed him feverishly, pushed him down against the bed. That first time when they were truly, properly together, ever since that moment in summer beneath the apple tree, when Hux had come alive between Ben and the bark.

Ben didn’t know what he was doing and neither did Hux, but that didn’t seem to matter once their clothes were off and they were tangled together in the blankets. There was nothing that could compare to Hux writhing beneath him, clutching at Ben’s back, rubbing against him shamelessly. Nothing compared to Ben’s name on Hux’s lips, or the scrape of the other boy’s nails down his shoulders, or the sweet, lingering warmth of cuddling against him when it was over.

Nothing could compare to being together in the showers, afterwards.

“Call me over break,” Hux said the next day, bundled up in his scarf and pea coat, his cheeks pink from wintry air, so vivid they almost matched the brightness of his red hair. “So I have something to look forward to.”

“I promise,” Ben said. He watched Hux get into the car.

 

-

 

They should have been more careful. But Ben refuses to dwell on it.

 

-

 

“Do you ever worry Rey will meet someone else?” Ben asks one day. Finn shoots him _a look_ and Ben understands maybe that wasn’t the best thing to ask, but luckily for them all Poe is unperturbed.

“Always,” he says.

“How do you know she hasn’t already?”

“I don’t.”

Ben runs his fingers through his hair. “I don’t get it.”

Poe shrugs. He is handsome, the best-looking boy at the Academy. His burnished skin and dark curly hair – luxurious and rolling and magazine-worthy, not the tangled mess Ben has on his head – means he can have any girl he wants. But instead he chose Rey and continues to choose her, the plain-faced, skinny girl from the city who wears hand-me-downs but who moves like a ghost through a crowd, whose voice goes smooth and mature when she sings along to the radio. Rey who wears the same secondhand dress to all the school dances because she doesn’t care, she just wants to dance.

“I love her as she is,” Poe declares. “If she loves someone else – how she feels doesn’t change how I feel. It’s amazing that she loves me back, but even if she didn’t, anything I write to her… I won’t regret writing it.”

Ben doesn’t really think Rey might be in love with someone else. He’s met her a few times by now and he can’t imagine her writing Poe all the time, calling him once a week from a payphone, sending him smiling Polaroids, if she was in love with someone else. But Rey is not like Hux, and Ben worries.

 

-

 

The month after Christmas always feels like a set of dead days, leaden and lifeless. Ben’s feet drag as he makes his way back to school, the warmth of holiday cheer at his back and rapidly fading, as if he were walking away from a fireplace. He tries not to think about how different it was last year, coming back to school, coming back to Hux.

To disrupt the monotony of homework on weekends Poe insists on snowball fights. In the evenings Ben tries to write letters to Hux but instead he feels a pressure in his head and an ache in his chest.

 _Do you still love me?_ He cannot seem to write. _Do you hate me for what’s happened? I just want you close again. I can’t do anything without you, I’m lost, the world is too big and I’m alone in it. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please, please love me._

Ben tells himself he doesn’t write it because he can’t figure out the words, that he's not a poet, that he's not like Poe and Rey. It has nothing, he maintains, to do with fear.

 

-

 

As spring unfurls, Poe’s older cousin Snap picks them up from the Academy. They pile into the back of the pickup truck, laughing, their uniforms shucked off and instead wearing their favourite jeans and shirts and sweaters and sneakers. All but Poe who is wearing his best blazer, shirt and tie, ready to be Rey’s date to her school’s dance. He can’t stop grinning, and his giddy excitement is infectious. Even Ben smiles when they pull up to the apartment building and there’s Rey in her glittery green dress.

Poe stands up and leans down, taking Rey's hand, and she steps and hurtles upward, her dress flashing, like a mermaid bursting from the water as she leaps lightly over the tailgate and into the bed of the truck. They kiss like they're on the Hollywood Boulevard.

After Poe and Rey are dropped off they all go to Snap's tiny apartment. Like all of the boys at the Academy they come from wealthy families, but Snap has decided to make his own way. He has a roommate named Jess, a frightening woman with a grin like a knife, and everyone is in love with her, and she never has to get up to get her own beer as the boys fight for the privilege.

At eight o'clock Ben is a bit drunk and he makes his silent way down the stairs and outside where the air is cool and calming and the sky glows with a sun that still hasn't managed to set. _Summer soon_ he thinks as he leans against the wall of the payphone booth, fumbling in his pockets for coins, for the creased and folded piece of paper with the number he had copied out of the phone book.

"Armitage Hux, please," he asks.

It takes some time. He wonders what Hux was doing. Was he sleeping? Ben starts to panic, but then he hears the other boy's voice and it's like his hair is wafting with the ghost of Hux's fingers, slipping through, comforting, possessive. "Hello?"

"Hey, it's me."

"Ben?"

"It'll be summer soon," Ben blurts out. He can feel tears pricking at the corner of his eyes. His head is swimming.

There is silence on the other end. "Yes," Hux agrees, gently. "Soon."

Ben doesn't know what to say. His voice tries to claw its way up his throat but he clamps his mouth shut. He feels as if he is dying, drowning in his own blood, and Hux is breathing on the other end of the line, so far away, too far to make it in time.

"Listen, Ben," Hux says, finally. "This isn't a good time to call unless it's an emergency. I'm sorry my letters haven't been very long. My father has instructed that all of my mail is read."

Ben pries open his jaw to speak. "That's awful."

"I know. Sorry."

"It's not your-"

"I should go," Hux says, tersely, Ben swears he's really saying _I_ _**know** it's not my fault _and he can't argue, doesn't want to argue. "I'll call you when I'm out, alright?"

"Alright."

"Bye, Ben."

"Hux, I-" but Hux has hung up and Ben gently places the phone back in the cradle.

He goes back to the apartment and gets into Snap's whisky. Later he is outside again, but this time he is vomiting in the alley with Finn patting his back and going, "Better out than in, soldier."

_Hux, I love you._

 

-

 

It's late. Ben is laying flat on his back in the truck, staring at the sky whirling above him, streetlights flickering by like lightning bugs. "Where are we?" he asks, aloud.

Finn answers, "Getting Poe and Rey, of course."

The sound of laughter, of music, of crying and arguing, reaches him. High school from the books and the movies. Ben would get up to take a look at it if he could, but instead he lays there. He feels something scratchy and gauzy all at once on his arm, and then Rey is looming over him. Sequins and lace.

She takes his face in her hands and he looks into her eyes, deep and endless. "Don't give up, Ben," she says. Of course she knows, of course Poe told. But that's okay; he hates that it's a secret, thinks life is already unbearable enough, but at least his friends know and love him just the same.

"I know he's waiting for you."

She glitters above him like a star. He doesn't notice when she's gone and they're driving out, out, back to the Academy, the dark sky twisting above him, streaked with crumbled diamonds, and a moon heavy and glowing, watching him, watching Hux, watching everyone.

 

-

 

The school year ends and the boys scatter. Poe is planning on getting a part time job in the city, living with his cousin Snap so that he can spend the summer with Rey. If not it'll be the same as last year, driving an hour and a half from his own hometown every weekend to see her. Finn is going on vacation with his parents to the Caribbean, where, he says, he plans to fall in love.

 _Don't do it_ , Ben wants to shout.

Ben is almost afraid to leave, but his uncle Luke has arrived, waiting to take him back home. Home, to that small and thriving town where his mother is the Mayor and his father fixes cars. Home, only a thirty minute drive on the highway clogged with other towns just like it until he reaches that special place, a collection of cafes, book stores, tiny boutiques on the edge of undeveloped land. The halfway point between him and Hux, the centre of the universe.

His parents hug him when he gets back. He cannot pretend they hate him when they know his secret and treat him just the same. His father asks if he wants to learn the trade this summer, get some grease under his nails. His mother makes his favourite dish, and talks about college. Somewhere in there, he is handed the spare key to his father's truck.

Hux doesn't call when he says he would.

In his room, the walls dripping with posters curling from the heat he lets in through the open window, Ben tries to write again. About his hopes, about his memories. About the delicate fan of red lashes surrounding Hux's eyes. Instead he only manages a simple tear-smeared _I love you_. Enraged, upset, he stuffs it into an envelope and drives out to the apple tree.

The white flowers of spring have dropped; already there are small dabs of fruit forming in the branches. Ben smooths his hand over the bark, feeling the warmth of the sun (of Hux), his stupid envelope with its stupid letter crumpled in his stupid fist.

He finds their spot where the roots spread around like a cradle, and places his letter there, pinned underneath a small pile of stones. _A cairn_ , he thinks, sarcastically. He hates his dramatics, he hates how he feels, he hates the uncertainty that prickles the back of his neck and the anguish that he might never hear his name whispered in the dark ever again.

 

-

 

They were thirteen.

"So where are you from?"

"Alderaan," Ben answered.

A smile formed on Hux's lips. "That's cool," he said. "I'm only an hour away."

 

-

 

His nights are sleepless. He refuses to use the air conditioner, instead leaves his window open to the evening, lays on top of his sheets, and listens to the sounds of nighttime. Summer is warmth, is heat, is Hux. He will not chase it away, should it wish to arrive.

His lights are off but darkness is absent in the glow of the streetlights outside, amber and blurry. Eventually from where he lays he will be able to see the moon when it passes by, but not yet. He listens to the sound of engines, cars driving into the neighbourhood and turning around, lost or getting their bearings, who knows. He can tell which cars have their windows open by how loud and pure the sound of their radio is.

Summer hasn't begun, not really. Summer might never begin again.

He hears a car drive past, the cut of an engine. He closes his eyes and thinks idly of sleep, knowing it will not visit him, not until the sky is beginning to lighten in the east.

"Ben," someone says.

Is his mother calling him from the depths of the sleeping house?

"Ben, God damn you."

He sits upright, startled, then claws his way to the window to look out. Standing in the driveway is Hux, face upturned towards Ben's window, expectant. He is beautiful and always has been to Ben's eyes, something soft but also imperious about his face.

"Throw me your key," he orders. Ben does, a thin arc of silver that the redhead catches with grace.

His stomach twists as he hears the soft step of Hux coming up the stairs; he is too scattered, too anxious to try to chuck the dirty laundry out of the way, put on deodorant, do anything by the time Hux pushes open the bedroom door but stand there and stare.

Things have changed. Hux has cut his hair and it is pushed gamely out of his face, the beginnings of stubble on his cheeks, and he is expertly turned out, all corners and neatness; he has been done over the same way the military makes up beds and Ben feels messy and unattractive in comparison. His eyes are the same, though, studious and piercing.

When he steps forward Ben is shocked to find that Hux has to angle his gaze upward. "You're taller," Hux remarks, putting his hands on Ben's neck.

Ben closes his eyes, relishing the touch. Hux's fingertips are rough with callouses.

"I went to our tree," Hux continues, softly. In the silence that follows he huffs out an annoyed breath. "For God's sake, Ben, say something."

"I missed you," Ben blurts out. "I didn't know how... how to say... anything..."

Hux gives him a weak smile. "You never do."

Ben presses his forehead to the other boy's, breathing in his scent. That, too, is the same, and it fortifies him. Hux's fingers find his hair and Ben lets out a sigh.

"Your letter said you loved me," Hux whispers. "Is that true?"

Ben shivers with terror and expectation but he finds it in himself to look the other boy in the eye, to meet that gaze, to be brave like Poe. "It's the only truth I know," he says.

Hux kisses him and the fear is gone. There is only summer, now.


End file.
